Talk:John Breckinridge
Given cirrhosis of the liver as his cause of death, I'm tempted to include him in Category:Alcoholics, but the article I read makes no mention of alcoholism. I've never heard of a non-alcohol related case of cirrhosis but I don't know for a fact that it's impossible. Turtle Fan 06:56, September 13, 2011 (UTC) :Per the article on cirrhosis at wikipedia, it can also be caused by Hep B and C, fatty liver disease, and some other things. So, I guess we can leave him out of alcoholics with a clear conscience until we get information otherwise. TR 02:16, September 14, 2011 (UTC) ::Good to know. Anyway, I'm wondering about the succession box that puts him between Buchanan and McClellan as the Democratic nominee. Douglas was nominated at the national convention, the Breckenridge people pretty much said "We're taking our ball and going home." :I've copied over the template that allows for references in templates. It does explain that Breckinridge was the Southern Dem, Douglas was the Northern Dem. TR 03:21, September 14, 2011 (UTC) ::I assume that's what the superscripts are for. We've got to be careful about that: Nothing's worse than an indicator of a footnote when the footnote doesn't exist. Turtle Fan 04:03, September 14, 2011 (UTC) I just realized that eight straight election years offered at least one Civil War general on the ballot: Scott in 1852, Fremont in 1856, Breckenridge in 1860, McClellan in 1864, Grant in 1868 and 1872, Hayes in 1876, both Garfield and Hancock in 1880. Turtle Fan 03:11, September 14, 2011 (UTC) On a completely unrelated note, the picture we have is NOT Breckinridge. Don't know who that is, but the person we have up is too craggly about the face and cheek bones. Breckinridge's eyes were also very light colored--they look almost supernatural in black and white photos. TR 03:21, September 14, 2011 (UTC) :My misspelling came in handy there; I didn't have to try to replace one photo with another. Somehow that always ends up being a little chancy for me on here. :The picture was in fact John Brown Gordon--an unfortunate name for one of the Confederacy's most rabid fire-eaters. He was a regimental commander at Antietam and kept fighting in the Sunken Lane despite being shot in the head. He eventually became a corps commander during the seige of Petersburg. He was the very first man in line when the ANV lined up to turn its weapons over to the Army of the Potomac, and he ordered his men to return Chamberlain's salute rather than spit at his feet or something. :After the war he helped Forrest form the Klan (which Breckinridge, to his credit, campaigned against) and took over as Klansman-in-chief (whatever they call him; I have no interest in learning those clowns' ridiculous titles) after NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST HIMSELF resigned because they had become too violent. And yet he became very good friends with Carl Schurz: not the most radical Republican, but not the least either. (The two had faced each other in battle on the first day at Gettysburg.) :Gordon and Breckinridge fought alongside each other during Early's desparate raid on the defenses of Washington just as Grant was crossing the Rappahannock. That's probably why the picture came up. It was fairly deep in the first page of results. I was looking for a shot of Breckinridge in uniform, and I prefer photographs to hand drawings whenever possible. (Crockett, Bowie and Travis had the gall to die just a few years before they could have been properly photographed.) All the pictures of Breckinridge in uniform were hand-drawn. They don't look any closer to the man in this photo than Gordon does, by the way; apparently he had a makeover once he joined the Confederate army. Since the reference is to candidate Breckinridge, though, a civilian suit may be more appropriate. Turtle Fan 04:03, September 14, 2011 (UTC) And on another topic still: we have 3 Secs of War for the CSA now, although there is still little change oc growth. Category? TR 03:50, September 14, 2011 (UTC) :Sure, why not. We have so few Confederate offices with their own categories. And the only other option is to have them in the Ministers of War category, and that is not their title. :Five Secretaries in OTL. In a four-year administration. Which was engaged in a war for its survival every single day it existed. So much for not changing horses in midstream. Turtle Fan 04:03, September 14, 2011 (UTC) Defectors? What do you think? I think Johnathan is getting looesy-goosey again. Breckinridge ran, lost and joined the rebels. ML4E (talk) 19:45, November 8, 2015 (UTC) :Agreed. It's enough that he's in the Confederate pile. TR (talk) 20:07, November 8, 2015 (UTC) :By his logic (to use the term loosely) all of the Confederates were defectors. When in fact none of them were. :Maybe a Rebels category? Confederates could be a subcat, and there are any number of strays I can think of offhand who could fill up the main cat. We could even throw in Jonathan's precious Devil; maybe that would content him that _Paradise Lost_ was getting its nod and he'd stop putting him back in Defectors. Turtle Fan (talk) 21:13, November 8, 2015 (UTC) :Breck's home state remained in the Union, he left and joined the CSA.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 03:06, November 9, 2015 (UTC) ::He joined the rebellion. He did not join an established government. (And by the way, all their home states remained in the Union. There's no such thing as secession, legally speaking.) Turtle Fan (talk) 03:41, November 9, 2015 (UTC) Deletion See Talk:John Bell. TR (talk) 02:22, July 24, 2016 (UTC) :There has been an understanding that contemporary refs to incumbent Heads of State and/or Gov't will be kept, but maybe the VP is one step too far removed for that.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 18:45, July 25, 2016 (UTC) Succession Boxes Hey TR, you made some changes with them that seems to have messed things up. I don't know enough about the programming to understand what you intended to do so I'm just going to call it to your attention. ML4E (talk) 17:58, April 30, 2017 (UTC) :I'm not clear what happened there. I didn't play with the succession boxes. TR (talk) 19:29, April 30, 2017 (UTC)